Jeen is a fascinating new champion. My initial sense of her is that SFG nailed the design here. She seems neither broken nor underpowered. She seems to fit into the game while also bringing something new to it. This is a very encouraging sign for the game’s development future. Kudos to SFG!
If you have not already read Fishy Wargaming’s excellent article introducing her, do so now. I am writing this article on the assumption that you have already seen Jeen’s cards and read that article.
My hope with this article is to play around with Jeen a little to get a visual sense of what she can do on the board. I hope it gets you excited to experiment with her yourself!
Imagine a hypothetical game between Bob and Amy. Amy is bringing Halftusk, Blackjaw, and Lorsann. Bob is bringing Shayle, Rodhri, and (of course) Jeen. Amy goes first on turn 1.
TURN 1
Plot Phase A - Amy
Amy does a pretty normal plot phase. Champs move up and apply boons. The Froglodytes get all the way up to the objectives.
Plot Phase B - Bob
Bob moves up and applies boons. Feeling frisky, he decides to exploit the combo of the shrikes’ crazy movement potential and their passive ability. Bob sprints one shrike up to the reavers, allowing him to scatter them as he sees fit at the end of the shrikes’ activation
Clash Phase
Activation 1 - Amy - Reavers - The Reavers decide to punish the shrike, so they consolidate and attack it. They are kind of obliged to do this in order to get out of Blackjaw’s way. They are likely to kill the shrike (69% chance), but in doing so, they leave themselves open to Jeen. The shrike dies.
Activation 2 - Bob - Rodhri - move and march.
Activation 3 - Amy - Halftusk moves up
Activation 4 - Bob - Shayle moves and tremors so that landslide can re-position twice
Activation 5 - Amy - Lorsann moves up and uses snipe on Shayle. She hits and does one damage. She shoot n scoots out of earthquake range.
Activation 6 - Bob - Household Guard Move and March.
Activation 7 - Amy - Mistwood Rangers move into range and fire at Shayle. They are roughly 66% likely to hit him. They miss.
Activation 8 - Bob - Landslide tries to earthquake the rangers. He is 44% to hit. He misses.
Activation 9 - Amy - Froglodytes - They annoyingly block off hexes in front of Rodhri
Activation 10 - Bob - Golden Shrikes - They recruit and give a movement boon to the Household Guard.
Activation 11 - Amy - Blackjaw - He charges forward and uses fireball on some Shrikes. This is better than trying to kick a dwarf first because the drawves are at armor 5, so kick only has about an 18% chance to kill one. Fireball, by contrast, has about a 38% chance to kill each shrike. Much better. He hits both and kills one. He then fails at dwarf punting, but does remove the armor boon from the Household Guard.
So here we are:with just Jeen to go:
Activation 12 - Bob - Jeen - Our new gobbo friend could move up and stab some things here, but the odds are not great. Polearm sweep has about a 51% chance to kill a reaver and about a 32% chance to kill an un-booned froglodyte. This means Bob would would probably expect to score two steps if he committed Jeen at this point. Perhaps the better move is to wait for the next plot phase and do some setup here. Jeen sharpens her weapons and gives out yet another speed boon, this time to Rodhri himself.
So Amy wins the turn. Bob rolls four dice, gets a two, and opts to go first. Bob re-arranges the hexes in order to force Lorsann to move closer, deny black jaw a flag, and set up some plot phase nonsense for Jeen and company. It looks like this:
Plot Phase A - Bob
Time for the Shrikes to show off. They can handle this Froglodyte problem.
First, the Household guard needs to clear out. Fortunately, their speed boon lets them get just far enough to clear the lanes the Shrikes and Jeen will need. Next, the Shrikes move in between the two troglodytes. They are fast enough to get there and attack the froglodyte on Bob’s right. They are in a two stack, so they are 5/4, giving them about a 42% chance to kill the froggie. They don’t kill it, but it’s fine because now that their activation is over, they can move the other (also adjacent) froggie. They do, and the board looks like this:
Now, the payoff! Rodhri moves two (thanks for the speed boon!) and plants a banner. He would have been able to claim without the help from Jeen, but this way he is in front of his banner, which makes it much safer. Yes, Halftusk can crush it, but he will face retaliation from Rodhri. I am sure Rodhri would rather be swinging his sword at Blackjaw than at Halftusk.
Next, Jeen moves up to kill some Reavers. She’ll use her bonus action first t because her damage boon might actually make it work. She has a 45% chance to kill a Reaver with rapid strike when she has the damage boon and only a 24% chance without it. Meanwhile, an un-booned Bladestorm still has a 72% chance to kill each Reaver and a 79% chance to do so with the damage boon. It seems like the boon is more valuable on the weaker attack here.
Rapid Strike misses, but Bladestorm kills all three of the reavers in the other hex. Six steps for Jeen.
After Shayle plants a banner and buffs Landslide, Landslide misses an earthquake attempt. Here is the board state that Amy is facing at the top of her plot phase:
This looks pretty good for Bob! Bob has maxed out on the Battle Ladder. Halftusk and Blackjaw will be able to make claims if the Froglodytes clear out, but Rodhri will be able to squish both and smack BJ if the Shrikes give our favorite dwarf another speed buff. Jeen is also set up well to move one and take a Polearm swipe at the frogs and reavers. Bob is set up well.
I’ll leave this for now. I know, I know, I didn’t demonstrate Jeen’s ultimate. Sheesh, she’s only been out for a few hours, give me some time!
I hope you enjoyed this and are psyched to play some Jeen!
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